A Real Reason to Celebrate

Sunday, December 12, 2010. Allie convinced me to go to church – not that I needed convincing. I have a number of irrational fears, one of which has to do with being alone in places where normal people have friends, i.e. church. It’s not that I don’t have friends… okay, yes it is. I figured that if there was one place that God would bless me with friends, it would be at church. I was right. Allie is a good, righteous, social gal who happens to be in the ward choir. Before Allie went to sit on the stand to share her beautiful voice (in a solo!), she told a Miss Emily Dutson that I would sit by her. I’d met Emily a couple of times, but we didn't really know each other. Allie loved her though. After I sat down next to Emily, Allie took her place on the stand with the rest of the choir. Emily and I talked a little bit before the meeting started. She was honestly, one of the nicest people I had ever talked to. She seemed genuinely interested in my answers to her questions.

“Have I already asked you how many friends you have?” She asked me, after a brief pause in our conversation.

Normally, it takes people a little longer to notice that I don’t have very many friends. Boy she caught on fast. Is it really that obvious? It’s because Allie told her that I’d sit next to her while she was singing with the choir. Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.

“Well, I don’t really get out very much. I mean, I’m not really shy, I’m just not very social. I have a couple of friends who go up here who worked at scout camp with me, but I don’t go to very many ward activities, so I don’t know very many people in our ward…” and so on.

After I finished rambling about my lack of friends, I looked over at Emily. She had this really confused look on her face.

“So you don’t have very many finals?”

That conversation definitely made it into my top 5 most embarrassing moments. After I told Emily what I thought she had said, she briefly laughed with me and then she was very polite in acting like I didn’t just spend the last three minutes coming up with excuses as to why I don’t have any friends. Like I said, one of the nicest and easiest people to talk to.

~*~

Thursday, December 23, 2010. Emily Dutson was taken off of life support earlier tonight. Last Friday, less than a week after we had become friends, she was in a head on car collision with her mother, who was killed at the scene. Emily was leaving to serve an LDS mission in Toronto, Canada on January 19, 2011.

I kept thinking about that car crash, wondering how God could do this to her family. It’s two days before Christmas and they just lost their mother and sister – wife and daughter. I was so confused by this that I didn’t even cry. Like, “Yeah right. God wouldn’t do that. Tomorrow, we’re going to get the news that this was all a joke and Emily and her mother are both fine”.

I realize now that that’s not how it works.

We celebrate Christmas for a reason. It’s the birthday of our Savior – our Savior who came into this life for us. He gave his own life for us – so that we can be with our families and loved ones forever. Emily isn’t gone – not really. Because of Jesus Christ, she’ll always be with us. That is a real reason to celebrate.